#1 Todays Meet

Screenshot taken from home page

What is it? What does it do?

Todays Meet (apostrophe deliberately dropped as 'it looked weird') is a simple, microblogging, backchannel tool. The backchannel is everything that is going on in the classroom that isn't coming from the teacher or presenter.  It enables a room, of any name, to be created with a live feed.  Participants can give feedback or comments that others, including the teacher, can see, in real time.   

Relevance to language learning?

Backchanneling has always existed in the form of students talking, whispering, distracting and passing notes to each other during the lesson.  This is commonly done using L1 (mother tongue).  Quite often, there is a legitimate reason. The student wants to ask a question or needs clarification, for example, but either does not want to interrupt the teacher or knows another student can help.  

Backchanneling skills are important for participants wanting to interact fully in the class and be cooperative listeners. It allows for a more individual difference amongst students, as it can provide a voice for otherwise introverted students, especially if paired up at each computer/laptop.  They might feel more able to take risks by giving their opinion. They can feel more included simply by being part of a group discussion or collaborative dialogue.

Backchanneling is important for the teacher/presenter as they can modify what is being delivered and adjust to the needs and emotions of the learners.

As well as the teacher's hopefully comprehensible input, a certain interaction takes place here with the students' further input being immediately commented upon or correct by others. This tool enables a sharing of ideas and encourages colloborative dialogue and a 'dialogic' process.  The process of learners constructing new ideas or concepts by making use of their own knowledge and experience is part of constructivist theory.

How can it be used?

 

It is simpler and easier to use than generating feedback with, say, Twitter, as students don't need an account or require a hashtag for every comment.  There used to be an option to incorporate hashtags from Twitter, but this seems to have disappeared now. 


The live feed can be viewed by anyone invited to the room or it can be put on an interactive whiteboard or projected in a larger auditorium.  


It works using any input laguage and, therefore, can be used to ask questions about, say, a piece of vocabulary or a grammar point.  Teachers could use it to elicit answers and correct if necessary.  Teachers can also ask students to expand on comments made or clarify something themselves if necessary.  The speed of use makes it engaging and inclusive for students who might otherwise waste their backchannel comments in an unusable way.


As participants choose their usernames, anonymous backchanneling could be incorporated into a lesson which asks for personal opinions about a subject.     

The comments, in the form of a transcript, can be saved and printed at the end of the meeting for future reference.  This can be copied and pasted into something else, like their own webpage or blog. Because the teacher can choose the length that the room exists for, it is not restricted to class time.  Students could add to it outside of class.

Example of backchanneling 
during a student presentation

It can be very useful for running, but not showing, during student presentations in L2.  During a joint presentation, for example, on talking about a wiki that the students have made, other students can comment or ask questions about it.  I have used it once before to add a layer of interest to student presentations. It can  engage an otherwise distracted class of teenage boys. It can add a sense of fun in the right envrionment, although this comes with a warning which I mention below. 

I think it would be a good way to teach spelling of vocabulary. For example, a dictation could be read out with an emphasis placed on certain words to be typed.  A student could similarly read out a dictation, with similar emphasis, and their performance checked by others.  Or students could be asked what are the words which carry most meaning in each sentence.  Whatever way, immediate comparable answers 

are shown, which can be later commented upon as necessary.   


In a discussion on our own course, the question of 'Why use technology in ELT?', responses were obtained by students typing these into a Todays Meet room discussion, 'warwickelt'. Screenshots below:

What limitations are there?

The attraction of Todays Meet is its simplicity.  It has none of the frills of the interactive web conferencing tools such as Anymeeting,  Big Marker, or Blackboard Collaborate . It can't be used to share desktops, send files or hand over control. All students need access to a computer or a mobile device. 

Comments are limited to 140 characters, similar to 'tweets', but this is not actually restrictive as most messages would only be very short, sometimes one word.   Messages can disappear as quickly as they are posted, especially with large classes, although these would appear on the transcript.  

There is no chance of retracting comments.  In addition, there is a danger of comments which are abusive, insensitive or  inappropriate, which once written are non-retractable.  The risk of others seeing it may encourage some students to sabotage the feed or, conversely, put others off doing so.   So there are possible negative consequences if there is not a good, productive relationship between teacher and/or students.  Similarly, conversations be distracting, or go off topic. It therefore, comes with a warning that there already needs to be a certain level of engagement already, rather than a tool which will create it.

Click here for an audio version of this post:



A video available about back channeling and Todays Meet: